Samoa's senior players say they only agreed to call off a boycott of Saturday's match against England after they were threatened with expulsion from next year's World Cup, writes Nick Purewal.
Census Johnston, the Toulouse prop, has revealed that Samoa's players received a series of warnings from officials after their threats to walk out of this weekend's autumn Test at Twickenham.
The 33-year-old front-rower said Samoa feared next year's Test visit of New Zealand to Apia would also have been in doubt had the squad gone through with strike threats.
Johnston said Samoa's players have only relented on their planned strike action to safeguard crucial future opportunities for the country's rugby-focused economy and public. "Yeah, there's a lot been going on the last couple of weeks," said Johnston, who refused to name the source of the threats, although he hinted at International Rugby Board involvement.
"To be honest we're really focused on this week, for the people of Samoa, rugby's a huge part of the country," said the former Saracens prop. "It's really important we put the country first before ourselves.
"We haven't spoken to all the boys about it but we have spoken to a lot of the senior players about it. And we've all just decided that we'll front up this week to make sure that we play well."
Samoa's senior stars last week threatened to boycott Saturday's England match over long-held concerns of administrative mismanagement by the country's rugby union. The IRB and the International Rugby Players' Association have both sought to mediate, but the Samoa Rugby Union has so far refused to attend meetings.
Tuilaepa Sailele, Samoa's prime minister and chairman of the national rugby union, labelled the players "spoilt children" in a bid to force through the clash against England. He said Samoa's senior players hope to hold talks with union officials later this week, but conceded they are yet to receive a response despite repeated invitations. "We're waiting for them to come to the table at the moment; we haven't heard anything back," said Johnston. "As a senior group we'll probably have a meeting later on tonight [Tuesday], just to clear things up a little bit and let the boys know where we stand at the moment. Our sole focus this week is to try to put up a good performance against England."
Johnston said a nucleus of experienced Samoa stars who ply their trade in Europe's top leagues will now consider administration roles in their home country when they retire. "We need people who are going to be there for the players: help the development of Samoa rugby," said Johnston. "The future of Samoa rugby is in our hands and that's what we're trying to do, make a move. We're trying to push this forward for the future of Samoa rugby."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article